


Medic Class: Routine Assessment and Maintenance

by cathouse_mary



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Backstory, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Partners to Lovers, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:17:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2815085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathouse_mary/pseuds/cathouse_mary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Medic's best way to a Heavy's heart is through his abdominal wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Medic Class: Routine Assessment and Maintenance

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to the awesome Delphi for the beta.

**Medic Class: Routine Assessment and Maintenance**

After a mission or melee, Medic often took off by himself. Members of the team would see him in his lab, attending to his equipment, and generally let him be. Everyone had their own way of processing the lunacy they lived in, and the mercs were "live and let live and respawn if all else fails" types. Mikhail, however, watched Medic closely. Medic kept him alive, and Mikhail kept Medic alive. It was not every day that someone dragged you off the field with a Howitzer shell in your guts, brought you back to life, took it out, then fixed your heart. Then, topping it off, Medic - crazy and smart in equal amounts - made his Heavy bulletproof.

 

The Übercharge was like nothing he'd ever experienced. Medic was like nobody he'd ever experienced. That fucking crazy German had the balls of a tiger. There he was with Medic, pumped up and yelling like a madman, charging into the fray, with bullets bouncing off them both like tiny little bugs. No matter where Mikhail went, Medic was there - every bit as much of a madman, staying with Mikhail and fighting beside him. It was better than drinking, better than fucking, better than beating BLU until they were the consistency of strawberry jam.  

BLU collectively shit in their pants and cleared the field so fast that they left holes in the air.

 

Medic was in his laboratory, using the BLU Spy's head as a desk lamp while he worked on his equipment. From time to time he lifted his head, rotated his head and shoulders, and then bent back to work. His shoulder – right one - seemed to be bothering him. Then again, he'd been carrying heavier new gear around for six hours today while keeping up with Heavy and the rest of the mercs.

 

"It is sore?" Mikhail asked.

 

Medic raised his head and blinked, looking at Mikhail and then the clock. "Apologies. I did not hear anyone come in."

 

"You have good concentration." He'd been here for about ten minutes, watching the careful precision with which Medic worked.

 

The medic reassembled the new Medi Gun pack, ran a test and nodded in satisfaction. "Danke, Heavy."

 

"Mikhail." They don't use real names, it's not encouraged. But when a man made you bulletproof, it called for something. "You may call me that."

 

Medic cocked his head, blue eyes keen. "Wilhelm."

 

The Spy head made an unintelligible noise around the light bulb in its mouth and Wilhelm turned to it, frowning. "You. Be quiet or you go back to being a pencil cup."

 

"You never answer question, Wilhelm. Your shoulder, it is sore?"

 

"Not appreciably sore."

 

"Funny Medic Wilhelm with word games. I am not so smart in English, am very smart in Russian."

 

"Ja, so I figured. It takes a Weapons Engineer to do what you do." Wilhelm removed the light bulb from the Spy head's mouth and put the head back in the refrigerator. "You started as a weapons technician - an apprenticeship in the army or with a master gunsmith - the degree in mechanical engineering was later."

 

"And doctorate in Russian literature." Mikhail sighed and took his medic by the shoulder with care, probing with a gentle touch. "Hm. Yes. I am very good at evaluating and maintaining equipment."

 

Medic startled at his touch, protesting. "But-!"

 

"Hush. Even talky medics. You see, when we team up, I tell you 'You keep me alive, I keep you alive.' So, today I ask myself, ‘Who is Medic's medic?'" The shoulder was stiff, and Mikhail thought that it would be painful. He pressed one knuckle slowly into the pressure point at the join of neck and shoulder. "Medic does not have medic."

 

The muscles spasmed hard under the pressure and then slowly loosened, the chain reaction moving from the superficial muscles into the deeper muscles. The shoulder quivered, then dropped, and Mikhail smiled at the sound of relief Wilhelm made. The same spot, opposite side, with the same treatment - and this time Mikhail could hear the neck pop as the left shoulder dropped. Not good to have his medic in such a state, not good at all.

 

"So, Medic needs maintenance like fine weaponry." Moving his fingers up Medic's neck, Mikhail closed his eyes as he judged the tension there. Why the man was not on the floor with a tension headache was a mystery, but a high pain tolerance threshold was mandatory for being hired.  "All parts must move easily. Timing must be perfect."

 

Mikhail applied slow and careful pressure to either side of the spine at the base of the skull. Medic moved, adjusting the placement of Mikhail's thumbs, then leaning back into them.

 

"Acute pressure on nerve pressure points." Medic, noted his for crisp and precise speech, almost purred. "The technique similar to the pre-scientific method of acupuncture."

 

"It works." Mikhail was amused. "Shoulder joint next."

 

Medic - Wilhelm - was not soft. The muscles were firm and in good tone, though there was a little softness around the middle. Home cooking weight. Papa weight. If Mikhail had to guess, Herr Doktor raised kinder before deciding to start raising hell as a mercenary. He would find out in time.

 

~

 

The team teased about the Heavy and his Pocket Medic, but nobody denied the benefits of being healed and bulletproof. If anyone noticed the Heavy and the Medic spending more time in each other's immediate vicinity even off the field, it passed without much more than a puzzled look. There was less teasing after they encountered BLU Heavy with BLU Medic. Both came out buffed, bulletproofed, and looking for a fight - which they got.

 

Even Scout said it was one of the nastiest frays he'd ever seen. "It was like watching Bruins game, man!"

 

Medic's blood was still hot, so most of the company walked wide of him when they came back to base. A Large Angry German could be a bit much to handle if you weren't used to it. In terms of size in the company, Wilhelm was only small next to Mikhail. He took himself off to the laboratory to attend to his equipment, and Mikhail tended Sasha.

 

"Never seen Doc that pissed, Heavy." Scout, barely old enough to shave, was working off his own case of post-battle nerves. His method involved getting on everyone else's. "He scared the crap outta me."

 

"Give it time, mal'chik. He has temper like Teutonic boom." It was a good joke on several levels. Maybe he was smarter in English than he thought. "Other Heavy guy got big surprise."

 

The BLU Heavy took a saw in the guts for going after Mikhail, then Wilhelm went after BLU's medic like an angry tomcat fully intent on clawing the balls off a rival. It was rather endearing to be protected with such ferocity.

 

"Hey, you know, he skipped dinner. You wanna take him a plate? Engie made that green chili and cornbread."

 

Mal'chik was still not over the sudden thoracic surgery to extract that damn crazy pet bird and was leery of Medic off the field.

 

"Da. I'll take to him." He wanted to see if Wilhelm was at least coming off his tear. As Engineer said earlier, the Medic was in the mood for giving a two-for-one installation special on new behinds today.

 

What he found in the lab made him set the plate on the desk.

 

Wilhelm lay stretched out belly down on the surgical table under a healing beam. He was bare to the waist, and a violently colored bruise covered an area from right shoulder to hip. The bruise wrapped around the ribs, and Mikhail could see more bruising to the right upper arm and shoulder. On the left side, a line of perforations from a syringe gun showed the attentions of BLU's medic. Topping it off, Wilhelm was asleep. If he had been here long enough to be asleep, he had been more injured than he ever let on.

 

So Mikhail took a seat and waited, considering how to handle someone so stiff-necked that he wouldn't admit to injuries. He also allowed himself a moment to admire what was generally kept under so many layers of clothes. Very nice. And yes - the middle showed Papa weight. Wilhelm shifted in his sleep, ungloved right hand opening with fingers spread, and Mikhail looked automatically at the third finger. No gold band - but there was a black one.

 

The ring meant that Wilhelm was a widower. It was something to consider.

 

Mikhail left the covered plate and put a blanket over the sleeping medic.

 

~

 

A delicate dance ensued after that. Wilhelm tried to find out what Mikhail saw that evening, while Mikhail played Big Russian Boulder of Nyet. The problem shoulder continued to be a problem, and Mikhail spent an evening compounding a liniment after Wilhelm took off his gear far too slowly and carefully, the elbow of his right arm held close and extended with obvious reluctance. The next morning the rain came down sideways and BLU's bridge fell to Spy's Sapper in the middle of the night - it was nice to have a day off.

 

And perhaps a good day for doing some Medic Maintenance.

 

This time when Mikhail entered the clinic, Wilhelm was slouched deep in thought, spinning a pen back and forth through his fingers. There came a soft metallic sound where the metal of the pen hit the anodized metal of the widower's band. "Good morning, Doctor."

 

"Ach, sorry. Good morning, Heavy." He set the pen down. "Something wrong?"

 

"Da. Your shoulder. It bothers me. It is to be fixed today. Take off shirt."

 

Doctor reminded him that he was, in fact, a doctor.

 

Mikhail reminded Doctor that three days ago, he had been face down asleep on his own surgery table - healing himself from injuries that he never let on to having.

 

For some reason, Wilhelm looked embarrassed. "I have to admit, I did not feel them until afterwards."

 

Heavy gave him a level look. Bozhe moy, eto medik. "Did not feel them."

 

"I was busy!" Medic maintained. "Besides, I am healed now."

 

"Then why is your shoulder still paining?" Mikhail touched the shoulder, gripping it as he assessed the tone and tension there. "You keep elbow close to body, do not move it until you must."

 

Wilhelm did not dispute this, instead insisting that it was fine.

 

Mikhail sighed. "Shirt off, berzerker."

 

It was interesting to note that he could argue the man out of his clothing - coat first, vest, then shirt, followed by undershirt. It took a great deal of time with that many layers, but manhandling the medic was a chancy thing - there was no such thing as a fair fight, and Wilhelm had a tendency to bite hard. Arguing him onto the table took about twenty minutes. Then, when Mikhail took out the liniment bottle, Wilhelm made imperious gesture.

 

"Zeigen Sie mir das." Taking the cork out of the bottle, Wilhelm sniffed it suspiciously and then put the cork back in before handing it back to Mikhail. "I think all of the cilia in my respiratory tract just vaporized."

 

"Da. It's good for snots and sneezes, too. Peppers and menthol make very stimulating." Mikhail noted that Wil took measuring glances at the space between the surgical table and the door, apparently calculating his chances of making it before Mikhail ran him down. "Brace yourself."

 

The initial shock wore off after a few minutes, along with a spate of breathless, red-faced cursing in German and three other languages, and Mikhail got to work in earnest. Wilhelm made some of the most engaging noises as knots were obliterated and the muscles began to go loose and soft.

 

"Good, yes?"

 

"Mmmhmmm-" Wil's eyes slipped closed, his breathing slowing as his muscles went relaxed and supple.

 

"Good. Now for realign spine."

 

Medic's eyelids shot open with an almost audible snap.

 

~

 

It took Wilhelm three days to admit that he felt better. Admittedly, the amount and quality of noise emitted by a spine undergoing readjustment could be alarming. Not to mention the amount and quality of noise emitted by Wilhelm. However, the medic was much faster on the field as he no longer needed to nurse the shoulder along. Pyro, as strange as ever, presented them each with some sort of small doll - Pocket Medic for Heavy and Pocket Heavy for Medic. Engineer had a doll of BLU's Spy - and some wicked looking pins that he delighted in sticking it with.

 

When given a present, you say thank you - as your mama taught.

 

"Hza!"

 

Wilhelm kept Mikhail alive and Mikhail kept Wilhelm alive as autumn rolled across the badlands, bringing winter in its wake. Winter here was a laughable thing. It was nothing to faze a Bavarian or a Siberian, but it made fighting annoying. One morning, he and Wilhelm introduced the company to the concept of snow slides and the uses thereof - from there Engineer ran with it. When the weather dipped and held below freezing, they staged a night raid. Armed only with snow shovels, hoses, spray nozzles, mops, and buckets, they turned BLU's compound into what Scout said was a winter wonderland - BLU'd be spending the winter wondering how to get out.

 

They sealed shut every exterior door and window with inches of crystal-clear ice. It took most of the night and early morning, but when the sun came up RED sat ensconced on their own battlements, breakfast cooking on the engineer's barbeque grill. They watched with telescopes and binoculars as BLU went crazy getting out of their iced-down fort, only to make the most epic, flailing, bone-breaking falls on ice as smooth as glass. His comrades crawled on the ground, laughing so hard that they cried.

 

Around lunch time, while they waited for the next round of comedy from their opponents, BLU's medic came out to the battlements and signaled them. He gave them a gesture composed of his middle finger sticking up from his fist, and he waved with vigor. This accompanied a shouted tirade, translated into English by their medic. Consisting mostly of obscenities and leavened with baroque insults, it was ten minutes of entertainment, and Mikhail filed some of the choicer bits away for later use.

 

Wilhelm smiled and stood after it was over, brushing imaginary dirt from his spotless white coat, then walked to the edge of the battlements and waved back. BLU's medic gave him a look that could fry lead bars and accused him of sundry interesting vices. Wilhelm listened attentively, and when the other man ran down he gave a polite round of applause. He then crisply snapped his right glove on, and brought his clenched fist up in an unmistakable gesture

 

And made a show of twisting his wrist.

 

This is in your ass, BLU.

 

Mikhail laughed until his belly hurt. So much for the prim and proper Herr Doktor.

 

Across the battlements, BLU's medic pointed at Wilhelm and then drew his finger across his neck.

 

As if he'd ever get the chance.

 

~

 

The team now joked about their increasingly frequent companionship. After a return to base, he and Medic tended to their equipment together, making sure everything functioned perfectly before "punching the clock" as Scout called it. Mikhail fixed the straps so that Wil could carry his rollout gear with ease. The Medi Gun gear and battle bag made for as much as 50 pounds of weight. It sat more lightly now, and the shoulder gave less trouble. They probably didn't need to continue the massages.

 

Yet they did.

 

Mikhail put Sasha to bed, then stowed Wilhelm's usual rollout gear next to her.

 

"I mean, it's like if you can't find Medic, just find Heavy." Scout sorted through a pile of baseball cards - as he did on downtime. "The other way around, too."

 

Spy did not look up from cleaning his gun. "Do you know that the other side says about them, gentlemen?"

 

"No, Spy. What are they saying? I bet I can guess!" Scout winked.

 

They say, 'If you see RED Heavy but not RED Medic - you're fucked. If you see RED Medic but not RED Heavy - you're still fucked. If you see them both and they see you - see you in respawn.'" Spy smiled and took a deep draw of his cigarette. "The only one of us that gives them more fear is Pyro."

 

Taking a sandwich from the plate on the bench between them, Mikhail picked up his bottle of Baltika and clinked it with the Wil's. "Vashe zdorov'ye."

 

Wilhelm toasted back, mangling the pronunciation, but the intent was clear.

 

~

 

Finally, Mikhail asked about the ring.

 

"An old custom. It replaces one's wedding band upon the death of a spouse." Wil set the new model Medi Gun he'd been fine-tuning on the work table and rotated the problem shoulder. "We were married fifteen years."

 

"How long has it been?" Reaching out, Mikhail felt that shoulder trying to knot again under his fingertips and nailed it.

 

"Ten." Said quietly as Heavy rubbed the knot back out. "I… our daughters were still so young and in school."

 

"Good papa, then." Mikhail considered. "My sisters are young, too. Still with mama."

 

"My youngest is starting her second year at university, my eldest is in her residency." The note of pride was evident.

 

"How many Doktor-babies?" Something about the idea of Doktor-babies was delightful. It explained the papa weight. Feeding bol'shiye girls was work.

 

"Three, but none are babies anymore," he lamented. "All grown and ready for their own lives."

 

"You started young!" Mikhail teased.

 

"Nein! I am old - 48."

 

Yes, they were supposed to keep much back from their team-mates, but there were never men who would not brag about their families. They gave no names, no locations, but Mikhail found that they talked long into the night of the ones they loved. They were men with responsibilities, and they made the sacrifices that they must to protect their families.

 

Mikhail asked another sensitive question. The Germans began conscription in 1936, putting Doctor in that age group that would have been sent east.

 

"Nein, my friend. My parents were monarchists in Deutsche Volkspartei. They aligned with the royal houses of Baden, Bayern, and Württemberg – Württemberg, Wittelsbach, and Zähringen."

 

There was talk of the Gulag and how one breaks out, and what a boy of sixteen does to cross the Alps to join his mother's family in Switzerland after the arrests and imprisonment of his kin. There was also rich and malty German wheat beer in the medic's office, plus dark bread, good things to put in bread, plus a potent golden drink that was honey and herbal and on fire at once.

 

"Eto kayf kak mul!" Mikhail coughed, eyes tearing and chest burning. "Uil, what is this?"

 

The shortened name slipped off Mikhail's tongue accidentally. It was what he called Medic in his mind - almost a honey-name, something you would call a sweetheart.

 

Laughing, Wil picked up the bottle. "Bärenfang, my friend. A vodka-based honey and herb drink."

 

Another round of little glasses poured and Mikhail clinked his glass with Wil's. "It's good! Vashe zdorov'ye!"

 

"Vashe zdorov'ye."

 

The second shot went down smoother, and the third. "I think, Wil, that German tongue is too stiff for Russian. The tongue needs to flow with the speech, not pick a fight with it."

 

"The German tongue can do some surprising things." His shirt was partially unbuttoned, the tie off, the starched collar wilted as he poured more beer. "I can assure you of my aptitude and talents."

 

"Talky Medic."

 

Then, for reasons that were hopelessly complex and very confusing, Mikhail took his talky medic by the chin and kissed him. This was a dangerous thing to do. The shock of Wil's mouth against his was electric and honeyed at the same time, and Wil's blue eyes were wide with surprise behind the wire rims of his glasses. For a moment, he went so still that Mikhail started to back off, only to be grabbed by the ears and pulled right back in.

 

Privet Doktor!

 

And the German tongue did not want to fight - or at least not much.

 

~

 

It was as if their skins were starved for touch, craving it as a man who has been starved and cold dreams of food, fire, and shelter. This something they missed on such a basic level that they couldn’t help but gorge and revel in the plenty of each other. It was not as if Mikhail was a stranger to sex with other men - nor apparently was Wil - it was the intimacy. They kissed like sweethearts, rasp of beard stubble aside, and frotted like young idiots who were run by the heads of their cocks. It was everything they could do to keep their hands off each other, even in the most extreme and inappropriate circumstances - and sometimes in the most extremely inappropriate circumstances.

 

Such as up against a wall in the middle of a sentry firefight.

 

"Mishka-"

 

Cheeks red, moaning, glasses askew, Wil could simply have asked Mikhail to kiss his brains out the back of his head - the effect would have been the same. Mishka. Yes, he liked that.

 

"Say it again, Wil. I like my name in your mouth."

 

"Mishka gib mir ah verdammt now-"

 

It was a fine thing to make Wil come so hard he'd lose his English.

 

~

 

They were reading The Brothers Karamazov - which Wil previously read in German and in English. Rather, Mikhail read to him in Russian as they burdened the sofa in Wil's office. Wil's head rested on his shoulder, and his glasses rested on Mikhail's chest. He thought that Wil liked being the smaller one in the pairing. At a few centimeters under two meters and just a little short of 100 kilograms there was quite a bit of Wil - just not as much as there was of Mikhail. Wil came up to the bridge of his nose in his combat boots and Mikhail's arms were thicker than his legs. He liked being utterly engulfed in Mikhail's embrace, smashed into the bed, pushed up against a wall and held there.

 

And the fucking. They’d kill each other with it. The bed broke twice, and though he treated Wil gently, fingertip bruises wreathed his hips in the mornings. Wil did love his turn on top, though Mikhail often lifted his lover's knees clear off the bed with his enthusiasm. At the moment, his interest in teaching Wil to speak Russian was losing to the desire to sink his cock into Wil's body and fuck them both silly.

 

"Come to my bed, Wil." Mikhail murmured.

 

"Mishka, I am sure that is not part of the original text."

 

They did not make it to the bed.

 

Though the line was out of context, Mikhail found it perfect for Wil, and it went through his mind like a prayer. He whispered the words against Wil's skin.

 

"Vy budete szhigat' i vy budete vyzhigat' vne; Vy budete istseleny i vernut'sya snova. I ya budu zhdat' tebya."

 

“You will burn and you will burn out; you will be healed and come back again. And I will wait for you."

 

~30

****  



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